Wednesday,
February 29, 2012 - Debate on the IEBC report was cut short two
hours ahead of schedule on Tuesday following a heated debate following errors
in a report on the delimitation of electoral boundaries.
Parliamentary Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs’
attempt to table the report on the errors without MPs first going through them
sparked the arguments that ensued pitting MPs on both sides of the House
against each other.
Trouble started when Committee Vice-Chairman Njoroge
Baiya had tabled the corrigendum, errors to be corrected, a move that elicited
bitter exchanges by members of the House.
Deputy Farah Maalim was forced to adjourn debate on the
report to allow the members to analyse the changes to the report bringing to
doubt if Parliament will meet the 7 day deadline allocated to it to debate and
make changes to the IEBC report before it’s sent back to IEBC for final
drafting.
The seven days Parliament has to debate the IEBC report
expires on Wednesday and debate on the report is expected to resume. IEBC will
go ahead and publish it if Parliament fails to deliver its report by midnight
Wednesday.
The electoral commission has itself 14 days to submit
and publish its final report. Kenyans can seek the courts intervention over any
concerns within the 30 days the IEBC Act provides for public debate of the
report. The High Court has 30 days to settle all petitions filed with regards
to the report.
There was a huge uproar after MPs accused members of
the committee of championing their interests, which is why they interfered with
the IEBC.
"The committee has come with a report on another
report. It is aimed at satisfying self-interests of a few MPs," said Gem
MP Jakoyo Midiwo.
Defence Minister Yusuf Haji cautioned those criticising
the committee saying every member needs to consider the merits and demerits of
every ward added by the committee.
But Defence Minister Yusuf Haji warned those
castigating the committee.
Jakoyo accused him of supporting the committee because
his area was allocated four extra wards.
Haji retaliated "He is opposing because he didn’t
have the opportunity to present his case."
“You cannot be right. We don’t fear you. Kwenda huko
(go away)! We cannot be scared,” he added.
Yatta MP Charles Kilonzo argued that the report should
have been handed to the Constitutional Implementation Oversight Committee. He
said the committee members had failed to show up for debate to back their
recommendations.
“When the Justice team was in limbo, this Parliament
and the country had peace,” said Mr Kilonzo.
Nominated MP George Nyamweya said the members instead
of going at each other throats should table a motion and censure the committee
members.
“You may not like the committee members, but you cannot
rubbish their report just because you don’t like them. We have to follow
procedure, we cannot let the House degenerate into name-calling and personality
clashes,” said Nyamweya.
The committee had noted in submission by the public
were requests to have the boundaries realigned to match administrative
boundaries and geographical resources. They recommended that the IEBC respects
the administrative boundaries even as they create the new units.
The Kenyan DAILY POST
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